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https://archive.org/details/yourhomeinteriorO0fsch — 


The “Home with ‘Personality 
“Depends on ‘Taste Not &oney 


HARM is an elusive quality. It may escape the most 

complete and expensively carried out Louis Quatorze 
Salon, to be captured by some cottage sitting room 
with rockers and rag rugs! It is something which is 
almost impossible to translate or define, for it has to 
do with personality. That is why we are so often 
chilled by the very splendor of houses that we feel are 

‘* 2 lacking in individuality; while others that we know, 
Pence few Fines of real intrinsic value, fill us with joy every time we cross 
the threshold. 

Yet the delightful touches which give a room charm and distinction are 
seldom achieved by happy accident. They are rather the outgrowth of culti 
vated taste. Money alone is helpless. It is far more likely to betray than to 
bless any interior planned without the aid of some well-trained appreciation 
of what constitutes a successful room. 

Creating a lovely, livable room is a matter of trained judgment. That 
subtle impression of good taste which makes itself felt in certain homes is not 
the result of chance. That sense of “rightness” which comes in a living room 
you know, is not accidental. 

If you are aware of a feeling of beauty and repose, it is because the room 
was composed as expertly as a piece of music, with everything suited to its 
use and in its own proper scale. 


{3} 


The Economy of a ‘Trained Fudgment 
to Solve Your “Decorative “Problems 


HEN you analyze the magic of delightful rooms, you find it is the es- 
sential harmony of all the details which pleases you. It is not the 
beauty of the individual pieces—of splendid cabinets, seductive chairs 

and admirable little tables; nor of the room itself—its proportions, its walls, 
its fireplace and fixtures. All these details, however lovely in themselves, fail 
to create a pleasing impression unless they are all related as parts of a well 
planned whole. 

Confronted by some decorative problem, the woman of the house quite 
frequently attempts to make her own changes without really analyzing the ne- 
cessity for them. As a result, she incurs an outlay of time and expense which 
a little expert guidance will enable her readily to avoid. It is as discouraging 
as it is wasteful to proceed without a clearly developed plan or with a plan 
that is not quite right. 


RSS con 


Beautiful fabrics offer the skillful decorator possibilities for contrasts of color, 
or of texture as in the case of this lustrous velvet and rich printed linen 


{4} 


The trained decorator knowing how people lived in those splendid days of the Renaissance when fabrics were 
in great favor, knows how to make the most of this stately Schumacher damask of crimson and gold 


For very few of us can, by ourselves, realize the full possibilities of even 
one room because we have not been trained to do so. It requires not only 
sure taste but experience, combined with the knowledge of decorative crafts 
and values. It is not only that we have to know how to live and how peo- 
ple have lived in great and beautiful times in the past, but we must be able to 
translate our way of life into the terms of a room and its furnishings, even to 
the upholstery of a sofa, or the finish of a curtain. 

Those who have this knowledge and taste often are able to develop 


{5} 


charmingly decorated homes. But it 
takes so much time, so much worry 
that most women prefer to consult a 
specialist on their decorating problems 
as they do on the other technical ques- 
tions of dress and living. Your deco- 
rator offers you expert advice and 
service at no additional cost over what 
you would spend if you were to super- 
vise all the details yourself. Contrary 
to general opinion, it usually costs less 
to work with the help of a specialist 
in home furnishings than to make one’s 
plans and purchase independently. 

It is always a pleasure to consult 
with interior decorators, those men 
and women whose forte is the crea- 
tion of beauty in our homes. Experi- 
ence and training enables the decorator 
to quickly appreciate your problems 
and offer many resourceful ways of 


The decorator knows how to make your small room 


solving them. He (or she) knows how look larger, how to turn a puzzling corner into a 
delightful feature of the room. Just as the archi- 
to make your small room look larger— tect helps you with your building plans, the deco- 


how to turn a puzzling corner into a rator will help with your furnishings 


delightful feature of the room. A slight rearrangement or the omission of one or 
two pieces not in keeping with the general effect may be all that is necessary to 
put your living room or bedroom into the key of perfect taste. 

But before you eliminate the old or add the new, avail yourself of a guide. 
Consult your decorator. Just as the architect helps you with your building 
plans, the decorator will help with your furnishings. Whatever the size or the 
elaborateness of your house, your interior decorator can help you with it. In 
reality, the more modest the house and the more necessary the practice of 
economy in spending, the more valuable competent decorators can be. Under 
their expert guidance there are no false starts, no doing over of the job once 
done. The decorator not only knows by experience what to avoid but also 
how to obtain the desired effect in the most economical manner 


diGaE 


“Why a “Decorator Makes “No 
(-harge for his Services 


T IS quite possible to give your home just the look you have always wanted 
it to have. You may not know what is wrong with it as it now is; you 
may not know exactly how to go about building a new scheme that more 

charmingly expresses yourself, but your decorator does. The aid and advice of 
an expert are at your command for no greater outlay than would be necessary 
if you were doing your own planning. 

The decorator asks no fee for his services. Every business establishment 
renders you a certain amount of service in its dealings with you. Whether it 
be automobiles or banking, expert advice and knowledge are available for your 
guidance. Thus when you call in a decorator to help you in furnishing your 
home or any single room in it, he places at your disposal the experience and 
skill that are the integral parts of his profession. 

At the same time you are purchasing draperies and furnishings, you are 


Among the patterns being reproduced today from the famous Toiles de Jouy, exe- 

cuted at the end of the 18th century, there are none more delightful than this rather 

typical design reminiscent of Marie Antoinette and her life at the Petit Trianon. 
Such interesting prints usually are obtainable only through the decorator 


{7} 


receiving the most up-to-date suggestions for their use. Correct making and 
hanging are just as important for successful curtains as good tailoring is to 
clothes. Either, without the professional touch, is apt to look home-made, and 


fine fabrics deserve better than that. 


HE primary function of the decorator is not to spend more of your 

money, but to see that for every dollar spent you get the utmost in value. 

You yourself may buy certain things that you will eventually discard or 

want to discard. The experienced decorator will avoid such experiments, and 
totals of just such things reach astonishingly large amounts. 

Through his experience the decorator knows just where and how to 

distribute expense——what proportion to allow for each detail. He will submit 


The soft rich hues of this typical Schumacher chair 
covering show that tapestry can use color more pro- 
fusely than textiles of any other kind 


an estimate of the cost of a given 
plan before making any expenditures. 
The cost of the entire scheme is 
subject to your approval. If he has 
a clear field and can purchase every- 
thing new from the start, the advan- 
tage is obvious. If, on the other 
hand, his task is to make new rooms 
from old, to eliminate what has lived 
past its usefulness and restore the 
beauty of the best things by a care- 
fully planned setting, his aid is even 
more necessary. 

And he knows where to buy 
and how much things should cost. 
Through your decorator you can 
obtain draperies, furniture and ac- 
cessories you could not find else- 
where. Because of these services the 
time has come when the interior 
decorator is no longer in the luxury 
class but is generally regarded as a 
necessity. That is why so many 
delightful homes today are done 
with the assistance of a decorator. 


ANY of the finest fabric designs found in museums and great private collections 
are today being reproduced at prices that bring them within reach. Splendid 
tapestries, lovely brocades and damasks, fascinating printed linens—rarely found 
when you are doing your own shopping—are easily procured through your decorator 


{9 } 


The “Decorator Knows ‘Where to 
ind Fust the “Right ‘Thing 


HE good.decorator does not impose his (or her) own ideas upon you 

but works with you to create a background of taste and individuality. 

By expressing your character in terms of wood and glass and textiles, he 
creates an interior that is distinctive of you alone. With his knowledge and 
discernment, he is usually able to picture a charming setting for your person- 
ality better than you yourself can. The very intimacy of your attachment 
may blind you to the possibilities your home offers. He avoids the stereotyped 
and seeks the unusual—the something different that makes your room utterly 
your own. To do this he must know the entire wholesale market. He must 
keep in mind all kinds of information pertaining to furnishings. Where you 
know a few places from which to buy, he knows literally hundreds. The deco- 
rator is in constant touch with the best ideas both in this country and abroad 
and is able to apply them to the needs of your home. The new art movements 
are as familiar to him as the classic styles of the past. 

Your decorator has textiles at his fingers’ ends. The splendid tapestries, 
the lovely brocades and damasks which will give color and distinction to your 
living room, the fascinating printed linens to transform your bedroom—so 
rarely found when you are doing your own shopping—are easily procured: 
through your decorator. Many of the finest designs in museums and great 
private collections are being reproduced today at prices which bring them 
within your reach. You can call him in to help you with your entire home, 
a single room, or just the curtaining of a difficult window. No part of making 
a delightful interior is too small to interest a decorator. His knowledge of 
shops and materials is all at your disposal. 


The decorator avoids 
the stereotyped and 
seeks the unusual — 


the something differ- 
ent that gives a room 
marked individuality 


The Important “Part (olor “Plays 
in the “Decorative Scheme 


LET OLOR, one of the most important features of a 

Tho ee room, is one that is too often neglected. Not that 
color itself is neglected, but rather its purpose as a 
decorative element in a room. 

Color endows a room with brightness, har- 
mony, a sense of sheltered brilliance or vivacity. 
The effects attained by the skillful use of color are 
not dependent upon richness of material; printed fabrics may contribute color 
as effectively as rare brocades. 

Any room, however simple, can have the charm and loveliness of color. 
When deciding on the colors to be used in a room, the first question is whether 
the room is to be bright or somber, gayly stimulating or quietly restful. 

There are many ways in which color can be brought out. The draperies, 
carpets, furniture coverings, pictures and lampshades—all stand ready to accent 
the desired note. A room may have the richness and elegance of the Italian 
Renaissance, or be monastic in its simplicity, and yet have color expressed in 
great masses or in a few deft touches, as its dominant note. 

Every decorator takes into consideration the psychological effect of the 
color scheme he is using but the woman who decorates for herself is apt to be 
carried away by her emotions when she chooses. Because she “just loves” 
blue, she does not stop to think of its effect upon the size, the lighting, the 
whole atmosphere of her room! 

Yet she is entitled to the colors she likes. Every woman has the right to 
be pretty in her own home. So the decorator first of all plans a color scheme 
as a background for the mistress of the house. Rooms may be rich in color— 
calmly dignified or brilliant with contrasts—but the colors must be becoming. 

Textiles play an important part in the problem of color. The same color 
has different qualities depending upon the material in which it is found. 
Velvets, satins, taffetas and rep dyed the same hue, have very different 
values in the color scheme. Contrasts of materials may be happily employed as 
well as contrasts of color. 


{11} 


This velours de Genes is a happy example of contrasts of texture developed in a single 
fabric. Here the beautiful pattern in rich blue and harmonizing shades of rose 
velvet contrasts delightfully with the soft, warm, cream satin ground 


The competent decorator understands and thinks in the language of color. 
Hues, shades, textures—to him—they all are important, for he understands 
and makes use of them all when occasion requires. Talk over your color 
problems with him. With his knowledge, his subtle appreciation and sensi- 
tiveness to color, he quickly corrects the colors that are out of key and helps 
you to develop to completion the color scheme that you timidly or uncon- 
sciously fail to carry out. 


{ 12} 


“Planning ‘Your S#ouse So It Will 
Not ‘Be Out-moded in a few Years 


F you are an expert on color and form, and have been able to keep up with 
decorative modes, you will have every reason to feel complacent about 
your home. But perhaps the things you are so used to seem a little out of 

date to other people? Do the draperies, or the walls, or the whole ensemble 
proclaim the year when you last decorated? 

Discerning women prefer to consult an interior decorator as the quickest, 
most practical way of creating the modern background they desire. In this 
way they avoid the passé and the “home-made” effects which can be brought 
about by very slight errors. In planning your costumes you seek the most ex- 
pert advice you can get because you wish particularly to know what is smart, 
what is correct. A decorator bears the same relation to your house that the 


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Old English crewel work aspired the design of this 
embroidered linen gayly colored cretonne 


couturier does to your costumes—for styles in furnishings change much more 
slowly but just as surely as they do in clothes! Yet the scheme that the deco- 
rator builds for you rests upon solid foundations of good taste. The furniture 
that is really beautiful today will still be beautiful after decades of use. From 
year to year styles may change in the accessories, the supplementary details of 
decoration—but the underlying plan of furnishing never “goes out”. 

For it is only the superficial in decoration that is subject to the tyranny 
of fashion. The competent decorator is quick to distinguish between the pass- 
ing fad of the day and the significant new developments in modern art. You 
need not fear that the effect achieved by the decorator this season will be out 
of style next year or years later. For he will plan furnishings, not for a sea- 
son, but for a lifetime, if you wish it. But do not confuse the collector and 
the decorator! To the collector—like the museum—the age of a piece of 
furniture may render it priceless. ‘To the decorator, it is of less importance. 
For domestic purposes he considers primarily use and beauty! For daily use, 
reproductions of beautiful fabrics and furniture are as satisfying as the origi 
nals, if they faithfully adhere to the beauty of design and of workmanship. So 
your decorator helps you to select those things which contribute to your 
aesthetic enjoyment and grow more precious with the passage of time. 


Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art 


The scheme that a decorator builds for you rests upon solid foundations of good taste. 
Beautiful furnishings will still be beautiful after long use as this room from the Powel 
House (now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) bears witness 


{ 14} 


The Time and &oney That 


a “Decorator Saves You in 
(‘reating a “Beautiful SHtome 


HERE 1s another great advantage to be gained from using a 

decorator. You are spared the fatigue of shopping, the pos- 
sible annoyance of paying more than the actual value of things, 
the disappointment of not finding what you particularly want! 

In selecting draperies, for example, instead of choosing from 
thousands of different fabrics in a large importer’s stock, your 
decorator does most of the eliminating for you, taking from your 
shoulders the burden of weary searching for what you want. 
He offers you perhaps a dozen samples, chosen with the skill of 
long experience, which most nearly meet your requirements. Yet the actual 
selection rests in your own hands. 

In the same way when he is working out the furnishings of a room, the 
decorator usually submits two or three different schemes. If you do not hap- 
pen to like any of his suggestions, he tries to find out just what you do want 
and presents still other schemes for your approval. 

To interpret your own individuality and to translate your attitude 
toward life into the fabrics and furniture of your daily life is the decorator’s 
problem and privilege. 


For the decorator most of all wants you to feel at home in your own 
house. Every commission he undertakes becomes an advertisement of his 
service. If you were not pleased with his work, it would be more unfortunate 
for him than for you, for he would lose the future work that might come to 
him from you and your friends. 

It is quite illuminating and also somewhat terrifying to realize how much 
there is of planning and detail to the furnishing of even the simplest room. 
Why not substitute the suggestions of your decorator for the worry, the 
wear and tear of shopping? For decorators know how to give your home 
the finished look that usually is achieved only by the tedious and careful 
selection of details. 


{ 15 } 


PPASE HULU MOME UE IN. Ge 16 ©) 


Importers, Manufacturers and Distributors to the Trade only 
of Decorative Drapery and Upholstery Fabrics 


Printed in U.S. A. by: 


Rosert L. Stittson Company 
Color Engravings by: 


TrIcHROMATIC ENGRAVING ComPANY 


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